Territory, Culture and Politics
This research cluster focuses on theoretical, strategic and empirical questions in cultural and political geography. Their research reflects the awareness that the cultural and political realms not only are strongly interrelated and subject to mutual influence, but that they cannot be analysed in isolation, as they are two expressions of the relationship between society and space. It is specifically around the geographies of these expressions that, in different forms and according to different methodologies, the work of this cluster converges.
The ‘cultural’ is analysed in particular through:
- Geographies of identity and difference and the workings of the concepts of whiteness
- Theories and the practises of the postcolonial
- Spatialities of militarism
- The role of cultural theory in the discipline of geography more broadly
The ‘political’ is engaged through a focus on:
- Questions of governance, boundaries and borders
- The relationship between identities, the local, regional and the state
- Global geographies of the new imperialism
- Spaces of geopolitics
The internationally recognised profile of this research cluster has attracted and continues to attract a vibrant group of PhD students. It contributes to a fertile interdisciplinary dialogue with other research clusters and individuals within the School and the Faculty including the Postcolonial Studies Group and the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies.
Specific research foci include:
- Space, place and social theory
- Colonial and postcolonial geographies
- Geographies of identity
- Geopolitics and ideas of the West
- The political geographies of borders and boundaries
- Nationalism, culture and politics
- Post-conflict geographies
- Masculinities, feminism and gender in a global age
- Military geographies
